CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (PNN) - October 8, 2018 - We’re all guilty of the Crop. You know, that group photo where you look so good that - sorry bestie, apologies grandma, see ya, ex - you carefully crop out the other person.

But what if there was a tool that could erase people and things automatically - a magic wand that could do hours of imperfect Photoshop work in an instant? Now, thanks to an MIT Media Lab project led by Matt Groh, that tool is real - if still imperfect.

SACRAMENTO, Kalifornia (PNN) - October 5, 2018 - On Sunday, Kalifornia Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that creates a process to expunge or reduce the sentences of people charged under the state’s marijuana laws before recreational cannabis was legalized this year. Enactment of this law takes another step toward nullifying federal marijuana prohibition in effect in Kalifornia.

WASHINGTON (PNN) - October 5, 2018 - The global rollout of 5G is well underway, and we soon may see new small cell towers near all schools, on every residential street, dispersed throughout the natural environment, and pretty much everywhere. But the safety of this technology is in serious question, and there is a raging battle to stop the taxpayer-funded implementation of 5G.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (PNN) - October 1, 2018 - The Army adopted its battle rifle in 1963 and has spent 55 years looking for a replacement for the M-16 and its variants.

They might have found it in Martin Grier’s Colorado Springs garage. Grier, a self-described inventor who has worked at a local bed and breakfast, built the new “ribbon gun” with a hobbyist’s tools. It looks like a space-age toy drawn by a fifth-grader.

What is important to you? Is it your job or education? Maybe it’s that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a performing artist or professional musician? How about the current year’s crop yields? Or your investment portfolio? Could it be your family? Your children? What is really important to you? What is the most important person or thing to you, and what would you do to protect and defend that person or thing? What wouldn’t you do?

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (PNN) - October 8, 2018 - Jair Bolsonaro topped the poll in the first round of Brazil's presidential elections, having seduced tens of millions of voters with simple - though radical - solutions to eradicating violence in one of the world's deadliest countries.

For many, Bolsonaro has the answer to the question that has preoccupied them for years - how to lower the crime rate in a country with more than seven murders an hour?

"Give guns to good people," the former paratrooper insisted during campaign meetings.

That clue is 2015 TG387, a newfound object in the far outer solar system, way beyond Pluto. The orbit of 2015 TG387 shares peculiarities with those of other extremely far flung bodies, which appear to have been shaped by the gravity of a very large object in that distant, frigid realm - the hypothesized Planet Nine, also known as Planet X.

September 30, 2018 - A worrying trend is emerging in (public) schools across the country. With increasing regularity, school districts are tracking students’ mental health and raising flags if a screening shows something amiss.

Student mental health tracking is often framed in terms of safety or prevention - that all children should be screened to identify the few who could potentially serve as a danger to themselves or others. Last week in Florida, all students who registered for public school this fall were required to disclose their mental health history. Has the child ever seen a therapist? That information must be revealed as a condition of school registration.

BOSTON, Massachusetts (PNN) - September 29, 2018 - Last week, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, asked me to come and see a project he has been working on almost as long as the Web itself. It’s a crisp autumn day in Boston, where Berners-Lee works out of an office above a boxing gym. After politely offering me a cup of coffee, he leads us into a sparse conference room. At one end of a long table is a battered laptop covered with stickers. Here, on this computer, he is working on a plan to radically alter how all of us live and work on the Web.

NEW DELHI, India (PNN) - September 27, 2018 - As the march toward a cashless (and privacy-less) society accelerates forward, a new high watermark has been reached.

India first introduced its concept for a nationwide biometric ID database more than 7 years ago, which it touted as a necessary “social welfare” program to assist the millions of India’s unbanked, streamline welfare distribution, and reduce corruption.

Yet, although the justification for the billion person database is the increased ability to accurately disperse social welfare benefits, it will not be just the Indian government’s social welfare programs that have access to and utilize the UIDAI. Indeed, even before the program has been completed, major banks, state/local governments, and other institutions are planning to use the UIDAI for identification verification purposes and, of course, payment and accessibility.